MAC has just released an awesome set of metallic cosmetics in Metal Urge. And this weekend, you can order online with free shipping.

7 shades of Brushed Metal-X Eye Shadow:

• Gilded Ash - dark charcoal grey with pearl
• Gold Spice - metallic coppery gold
  
• Forged Rose - Reddish copper with gold pearl
  
• Verdigris - Dirty deep green with silver pearl
  
• Metalblu - Navy blue with silver pearl
  
• Pink Platinum - Light blue/pink with silver pearl
  
• Material Gold - Pale peach/beige with gold pearl
  

3 shades of Pigments:

• Cocomotion - Dirty gold with an olive undertone and a gold sparkle
• Spiritualize - Yellow green with silver and gold pearl
• Gold Mode - Tan gold
  

4 shades of Glitter:

• Reflects Bronze - Rich sparkling gold
• Reflects Blackened Red - Sparkling burgundy
• Reflects Purple Duo - Rich sparkling purple
  
• Reflects Very Pink - Sparkling fuschia pink
  

Liquidlast Eyeliner:

• Dress Khaki - Khaki green with yellow pearl
  
• Molten Sol - Rich gold with intense metallic
  
• Powerplum - Deep plum with red pearl
  
• Inskpill - Deep green with green pearl
  
• Inky - Navy blue with low-level pearl
  
• Visionaire - Clean baby pink
  
• Classic Cream - White gold
  

Looks great, and I can't wait to buy a couple!

Product Review: Rimmel London Eye Twist

I saw a review of the Stila Convertible Eye Color. I wanted to try it out, but I usually order my Sephora products online for the Airmiles. Recently when I was at Shopper's Drug Mart, I found myself in the cosmetics aisle. I decided to try the Rimmel London version.

Rimmel London Eye Twist is a dual eye liner and cream eye shadow combo pen. It's supposed to be very blendable, and I love that the pen sort of looks like a Sharpie marker.

Well, colour me disappointed. I wore this in Two True, the green shades. I used MAC Paint Pots in Painterly as a base so that it wouldn't crease, which is a problem with my oily eyelids.

The good news was that the colour was quite pretty. The eye liner went on in a thick line, but it did blend beautifully. The bad news was that the eye shadow creased withing three hours, even with the Paint Pot under it. It isn't very pigmented at all, so the colour is quite pale.

Overall, I'm not impressed. I won't buy it again.

Product Review: Avon Line 'n Design Eye Duo

I'm extremely lazy when it comes to makeup, so I like products that do double duty. I like the Avon Line 'n Design Eye Duo because it acts as a creamy shadow base and matching eyeliner in one compact unit.

The colours are nice, with a hint of shimmer. I have Nectar Glisten and Shimmering Sand. It's tricky to use a creamy shadow as a base at first because they are a little hard to control, but blending patiently really works. The good news is that it doesn't smear as badly as some products I've tried.

I found this was really useful when I went to visit my sister in London this spring. It was one of the things that helped keep my luggage size down.

What multi-purpose makeup products do you like to use?

Product Review: Bourjois Paris Ombre à Paupières

I was in London this spring, visiting my sister. We stopped at a Boots pharmacy during one of the only rainy spells. Since I'd packed lightly, including makeup, I hit the cosmetics aisle to see what was different about makeup in the UK compared to Canada.

It was no surprise that the big boys were all present (Maybelline, L'Oreal, Revlon), and Rimmel London was there, along with Boots brands. But the other large display I saw was Bourjois Paris, and this intrigued me. There are about four Bourjois Paris items available at the Sephora website, but I'd only seen one or two items there and not an entire product line. Sis had bought me a cellphone charm lip gloss as a stocking stuffer last year for Xmas which was a hit, so I decided to take a closer look.

There were all sorts of products lined up, all with cute packaging. I decided to try the Ombre à Paupières, a wet/dry baked mineral eyeshadow (in the UK, they just call it Little Round Pot Eyeshadow). After humming and hawing over colours for about ten minutes (my little sis is sooo patient!), I decided to go with the Rose Tentation, a clear pink with larger gold shimmer. I thought it would match my makeup I'd already brought, but be the pink shadow I was missing. I brought it home and tested it out immediately.

The pot is quite large, and the makeup is baked until it's very hard. I haven't used water on it, but it applies almost like a pot that has already been wetted. The pot is very grainy to the hard and touch, but it goes on smoothly; I don't feel any graininess from the shimmer on my lids. I find that my brush picks it up well, but you have to work it onto the brush.

It's a shame that website really doesn't show how pretty these shadows are, and doesn't show all the cases, because the cases are the actual colour of the shadow inside. The shadows really change with the angle of the light, and it's very sheer colour that builds up slowly. Overall I'm loving it!

Unfortunately, it looks like Sephora is discontinuing the product from their shelves because what they do carry is now on clearance. I really love this line, so I'll have to source them online, or bribe Sis to bring some with her. I'd like to try a few more colours, but I can't choose which: they all look so good! My favourites so far:

• Bleu Myosotis (silvery blue with finer shimmer)
• Prune Intense (purple with gold)
• Rose Peau (pale shimmery pink with finer shimmer than Rose Tentation)
• Marron Glace (shimmering dark brown)
• Noir Cobalt (blue black)
• Rose Perle (iridescent pink)
• Turquoise Ensoleille (golden turqoise)

Product Lust: Urban Decay Urban Ammo Eye Palette

There is definitely a palette of colours I want to try. Urban Decay Urban Ammo Eye Palette (Sephora, $34) has a beautiful range of colours. I like Last Call, an irridescent plummy-purple, and Smog, a deep coppery-bronze.


These are their best-selling colours and they look good. You could use this palette to produce a simple dark smoky eye or a lovely rainbow palette.

Product Lust: MAC Dame Edna Collection

Shut the front door! MAC is releasing a collection 26 December 2008 inspired by my favourite TV talkshow diva, Dame Edna Everage. Yeah Boxing Day!

I looked at the colours, and they look pretty fun. Corals are not usually my thing, but I might give these a whirl as a compromise for the current orange trend. The blues and purples look fun, and the purple nail polish is called Varicose Violet; sign me up!


Lipstick (LE) - $14.00USD
Kanga-rouge – Creamy dark blue red (amplified creme)
Gladiola – Matte mid-tone blue pink (matte)
Coral polyp – Creamy mid-tone coral (amplified creme)

Lipglass (LE) $14.00USD
Hot Frost – Sheer mid-tone blue pink with multi-dimensional pearlized pigments (frost)
Splendid – Frosty pale pinky coral (frost)
Possum Nose Pink – Sheer bright coral with multi-dimensional pearlized pigments (frost)

Eye Shadow Trio (LE) - $32.50USD
Royal Tour Eye Trio
Royal Tour – Mid-tone cool lilac (satin)
Dame’s Desire – Frosty mid-tone reddish purple (frost)
Climate Blue – Dark blue violet with pink pearlized pigments (velvet) (Repromote from Cool Heat)

Wisteria Eye Trio
Fineshine - Frosty true-silver (lustre) (Repromote from Lustrevision)
Wisteria – Frosty robin’s egg blue (velvet)
Divine Night – Frosty charcoal with silver pearlized pigments (velvet)

Highlight Powder (LE) - $26.00USD
What a Dame! – Pale orangey pink
Spectacle – Pale soft pink

Nail Lacquer (LE) $11.00USD
Asiatique – Creamy classic red (creme) (Repromote from Ornamentalism)
Varicose Violet – Frost mid-tone pinkish purple (frost)

Images courtesy of bunnybunnybunny at specktra.net Color collection courtesy of Specktra.net

Product Lust: ColorOn Eye Envy Appliqués

As you can see from my 'About Me', I constantly quest for the perfect smoky eye. I was browsing on Sephora.com (because, let's face it, it's pretty much makeup mecca) and found ColorOn Eye Envy Appliqués-Smokey Kit.

I mean, come on! These are perfectly blended swatches that you put on and go. Can you imagine? No blending for ages, and for me, the problem is blending, especially blacks and greys. My eyelid skin is so thin that it grabs the makeup and creates blotches of colour. Blending is a bi-atch, and making a smoky eye using blacks and charcoals usually looks like black-on-grey mosaic.

There are a variety of colour schemes available. The colour blending moves from side-to-side on some, and top-to-bottom on others. Some of the palettes are subtle (Ibiza is taupe-down-to-chocolate), while others are bold (Sapphires and Gold is blue-in-to-gold-in-to-pink).

These appliqués are made from mineral cream eye shadows. They are applied over a concealer base, pressed on, peeled off, and finally a gel set powder is applied to set the appliqué. They claim to be crease-proof. I am a little skeptical that the application would be as smooth as it's described. I have trouble imagining that I could lay appliqué the so the eyeliner is straight and low on the lid. Also, the appliqués apply onto the eye in a pixel pattern, so I think you do need to do a bit of blending.

Still, I'd love to try the Exotic Kit and the Smokey Kit. I think ready-made camoflage or zebra eyes would be great!

Product Review: Physicians Formula Baked Collection® Wet/Dry Eye Shadow

Shimmer. I love shimmer. I started wearing makeup in the 80s, so it was all about the shimmer eye shadow. Usually in three bright, contrasting colours. As a fair skinned girl, bright colours tend to stand out on my skin like ink on paper, so makeup application without looking like a paint-by-numbers is tricky. The 90s were all about matte neutrals, and learning how to blend within an inch of your life. Now I'm loving the 00s, where mineral makeup is everywhere. Non-comedogenic, hypoallergenic and contact lens friendly, mineral eyeshadows are sheer which allows you to layer on the colour until you have the right intensity. I haven't looked for a mineral foundation yet (next on the list!) and haven't tried mineral lipsticks (the point is?...), but I'm all over eyeshadows and blushes.

Right now I'm loving the Physicians Formula Baked Collection® Wet/Dry Eye Shadow. The colour palettes are beautiful, and blend very well. It is great for soft colourwashes or more intense wet applications. I do find that mineral makeup sort of floats on your skin, and Baked Collection tends to crease a little after about 6 hours. A makeup fixer applied to the brush during the final blending controls this.



This collection is awesome for rockin' the smoky eye. The light colour is perfect for browbone coverage or inner eyelid, the medium tone is a good base for the lid, and the deep colour can be layered for slightly darker colour or applied wet for lining the lashes with intensity. When I took a weekend trip, I was able to use this for three separate looks without an eyeliner pencil.

The colours are baked into little bubble shapes that are separated enough to reach without mixing. The packaging is a little bulky though because of the domed lid. The palette includes a two-headed sponge applicator that is too really small to be useful. I wish the case had a mirror built into it like some of the other Physicians Formula eye shadows.

I've tried Sweets and Smokes collections. Sweets has a light peachy beige, a lilac and a beautiful deep brown, all with a very rosy-toned shimmer. The colours blend together surprisingly well despite their contrast. Smokes is a more traditional collection of pearl, dove grey and deep graphite, all with a white-toned shimmer. I might try Baked Berries next, which is a mix of very rich pinks and burgundys.